[STO] Assimilated Undine

[Tyler]

posted on February 6th, 2012, 1:34 am

Last edited by Tyler on February 6th, 2012, 2:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

Anyone know how the Borg apparently assimilated a member of Species 8472 somewhere in Online?

posted on February 6th, 2012, 3:52 am

Probably something with lots of technobabble and maybe even a temporary appearance of the Omega particle.

But seriously, I thought the whole point of the Undine/8472 was that they couldn't be assimilated.  So that's definitely weird.

posted on February 6th, 2012, 1:48 pm

ack take it with a pinch of salt, their storyline wont be canonized anyway, such nonsense.

posted on February 6th, 2012, 3:29 pm

Oh jes comon its the borg they failed their first attempt but in case your not familer with the borg they tend to adapt.

There is alot of crap in sto but seriously this is one of the most believable.

posted on February 6th, 2012, 3:54 pm

You're forgetting one important thing; they can't adapt to 8472, their first episode retconed the Borg into being unable to adapt to what they can't assimilate. As Ruanek said before, immunity to assimilation is 8472's Shtick.

posted on February 6th, 2012, 4:14 pm

actually borg being able to fight 8472 is reasonable, the doctor came up with the idea of having the nanoprobes pretend to be 8472 cells by technobabbling the electrochemical thingies. then 7 joined the crew, presumably she was told about how they fight 8472 with the nanoprobes gun. so 7 knows how to fight 8472, then later 7 rejoins the collective temporarily, she could have told them what they needed to know then.

also a janeway got assimilated in endgame, so the borg could have took it from her memory as well.

also oddly, borg cubes were destroyed quickly by the 8472 electro gun, but voyager took a hit without being destroyed. seems weird. they should be able to make borg cubes take at least 1 hit without just exploding horribly. i also think the borg were dumbed down a little too much for scorpion. maybe they couldn't find/make a weapon capable of hurting 8472 without assimilating, that is half believable, but they should have been able to do the usual adaption to enemy weapons fire that they did to the enterprise d without assiming anyone.

[Tyler]

posted on February 6th, 2012, 4:24 pm

Last edited by Tyler on February 6th, 2012, 4:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It would be if Janeway didn't give them the weapon so they could protect against it... the weapon is unlikely to be much use.

Seems weird, until you remember those Cube didn't have 'main character' status. I guess even the Borg aren't immune to 'The Worf Effect'.

posted on February 6th, 2012, 4:41 pm

It would be if Janeway didn't give them the weapon so they could protect against it... the weapon is unlikely to be much use.

that's why i said it's reasonable not guaranteed . 8472 were given the weapon, but if i gave you a nuclear missile to study you would still have a hard time protecting yourself from getting killed by one. it's definitely possible 8472 couldn't adapt, they aren't masters at adaption, and the actual masters of adaption (the borg) weren't doing much adapting in that conflict either.

borg would know that 8472 were given the plans to the nanoprobe gun (the same way they would know about the nanoprobe gun's existence and design), so maybe they are scared that 8472 did manage to develop a counter. probably explains why 8472 just disappeared and never appeared again (in reality their story was really at a dead end creatively).

worf effect is unstoppable. new super bad guys needed to look badass, so instead of having them fuck up tuvok or worf, they had them fuck up the old really bad guys. oh and idiot kim as well for teh lulz. kinda felt they overdid it though, would have been more tasteful if 5 cubes could kill 1 bioship with concentrated fire (i mean it is just made of flesh and ramming speed worked), but the cubes couldn't ounumber the bioships enough (they seemed to control all of fluidic space so they have some numbers), and the bioships were winning.

[RedEyedRaven]

posted on February 6th, 2012, 10:18 pm

Last edited by RedEyedRaven on February 6th, 2012, 10:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'd like to point three things out:

1. STO plays much later than "Voy: Scorpion"

2. Nobody can tell (because noone thought of it) what the Borg might have encountered (and assimilated) in the meantime. May be they added an anti-psionic/anti-telepathic characteristic to their own.

3. In which case they could have become able to seriously take on assimilation of species 8472.


Yeah, the trait of species 8472 on that particular episode was indeed their immunity to assimilation, but the Borg are constantly developing. 8472 appeared in few non-Borg-episodes lateron (two I think, and their point then was to show that it can sometimes be bad that someone learns you're existant, much like Q teached Picard in "TNG: Q Who") so there's no further canon example of what the Borg were doing to "adapt" regarding 8472.

Things change, Borg grow with time (meaning: by encounter) so who knows.

Having 8472 in STO is basically just a fan-service for the trekish alien-fans or those who long for a powerful NPC-opponent anyways; so what's the point of discussing how the Borg (who coult actually overcome everything given the time to adapt) shouldn't be able to assimilate what they couldn't assimilate earlier when the Borg's main trait is to add new or better characteristics into their culture and technology?

posted on February 6th, 2012, 10:32 pm

8472 appeared in 2 episodes after scorpion, prey and in the flesh.

you are correct in saying that random, less predictable stuff could have happened in the years between scorpion and sto's time.

i tried to keep to occam's razor and make as few assumptions as possible, going from stuff that has definitely happened. which leaves many options open for borg and 8472. the writers left it open, probably intentionally, thankfully they didn't push it, once 8472 got old, they just ignored them and namedropped them occasionally.

posted on February 7th, 2012, 1:02 am

Anyone know how the Borg apparently assimilated a member of Species 8472 somewhere in Online?

They adapted. 

posted on February 7th, 2012, 7:36 am

Is STO even trying?

posted on February 7th, 2012, 10:37 am

Is STO even trying?

STO is non-canon and free in terms of creativity.
I truly wonder why people didn't complain about the FE-mission "Coliseum", which exploited the nostalgic TOS-arena fight. Or all other FE-missions, which actually were the plots of very successful two-parter episodes in a new outfit.

No. People don't complain about used-again (or abused) classics. They complain about VOYAGER-stuff which actually sucked balls all the time with or without anyone caring about it. 

posted on February 7th, 2012, 10:52 am

Since it became F2P i started an account and i have to say it's pretty addictive.

A bit more canon would be nice at times, but for gameplay it doesn't really matter.

posted on February 7th, 2012, 11:17 am

A bit more canon would be nice at times, but for gameplay it doesn't really matter.

It's a MMO. Since it's an established franchise, it is also packed with a lot of fan-services, out of almost 5 shows, several novels, all the movies and may be even from other ST-games. It's really hard to balance all that stuff out in a way that makes canon sense.
Also many things in STO are canon things, but portraied differently.
I for example hate the way the Breen are done in STO. There once was a time when I found them mysterious, menacing and creepy, when that one Breen was in the dominion prison. Not talking. Not reacting. Then taking a gun and killing someone without obvious reason.
Then DS9 went into season 7 and the Breen were reduced to an alien-looking, talking but non-understandable (for the audience only) and just there to get rid of the Defiant which made season 7 look artificially desperate, as the Defiant in truth is just a starship as well. Sisko would have won the war in an Ambassador-class for that matter.

With STO however the Breen were picked up again. As plain-dumb villains with greed for power. They did what the klingons did in the TNG-episode "The chase" in their featured episode mission.
Which brings me back to where STO is still canon though. They may rip off plots of episodes, but of good ones usually. If you really know the shows and episodes however, those Featured Episode-missions are very predictable right from the start, because of the initial clues already.